1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a network device, a system, a control method, and a computer-readable medium. The present invention more particularly relates to a technique of specifying a printer that prints a job to be printed, after a PDL job generated by a generic driver is stored in a print server.
2. Description of the Related Art
A generic driver is a printer driver that is generically common to print devices such as a color multifunction peripheral, a monochrome multifunction peripheral, and an single-function peripheral (SFP), and can output print data described in a PDL (Page Description Language) to these devices as a print job. On the other hand, a conventional driver that is unique for each device model is called a specific driver. In a print server which starts to print a print job after storing and temporarily suspending it, a printer is selected upon a print start request.
Note that a print job generated by a specific driver can be printed only by a printer related to the driver. On the other hand, in generating a print job by a generic driver, the type of printer used to carry out the print job need not be considered. Also, in the latter case, a printer corresponding to the generic driver can be selected at the start of printing, and this realizes a more flexible print system.
In printing that uses a conventional generic driver, a printer capable of printing a job is specified from information on a network in job generation, in accordance with the type of PDL (for example, PS or PCL) (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-91732).
Print data generated by a generic driver is a job generic for a plurality of device models, but nonetheless print data generated upon, for example, A3 color setting cannot be printed by an A4-monochrome-specific printer. That is, a printer capable of printing a job differs depending on job setting (for example, an A4, A3, monochrome, or color job).
A certain print system temporarily stores print data in a print server and thereafter starts to print. In this system, the user selects print data stored in the print server and selects a printer from a list of printers capable of printing this data to issue a print instruction, and the selected data is output to the printer as a job to start its printing. In such a system, it is a conventional practice to specify a printer, capable of printing print data generated by a specific driver, by referring to the name of the driver that has generated this data.
However, as described earlier, a printer capable of printing print data generated by a generic driver differs depending on its setting (A4, A3, monochrome, or color data), so a printer capable of printing this data cannot be specified by referring to the driver name.